Shield
by ThereisnoSyntaxhere
Summary: He had no Soulweaver. He had no life. He had no business being on this Plane anymore. But the Glacier beckons, as do the stories of its guardians...
1. Technically it's a prologue

There was talk that the world had almost ended.

It didn't matter much to him. The world almost ended several times a year. It was nothing new.

But there were some who could never get used to how precipitous their continued existence really was, and so panicked every time without fail at the mention of the apocalypse.

Aegis hated those people. Not that he would ever say it. But really, how can you get so worked up about the End Times when you're already dead?

* * *

Though Aegis would never admit to it, he kept an ear out for any gossip to be had in the Plane of Elemental Spirits. With a population of little more than three hundred, news spread quickly along the Plane, and it wouldn't do for things to get out of hand. Shortly after his death and ascension, he'd appointed himself one of the protectors of the realm (he'd been stupid and brash at the time and didn't really know what it was that he was getting into) and as such often found himself working crowd control when things got out of hand.

Such as now.

"Miss Jonhston, I can assure you that the world has not ended." He said. Calm and firm. _I know what I'm talking about._

The orange Spirit in front of him huffed, and crossed her arms in front of her, but Aegis could see just a hint of doubt in her expression. Ceffuni Johnston had been a human in life, and in death had become the Spirit of Charity. Aegis had never thought that Charity was a definable trait, but then again he was one to talk. How exactly did one measure Valor anyway?

"Oh?" She countered, any doubt she might have had gone from her face, "And what makes you so sure? You don't leave the Plane much, so how would you know what's going on out there? They say there's a war you know—we've already had to welcome three new Spirits this month alone."

He frowned. Ah yes, the new arrivals. Aegis hadn't learned their names yet since the newly ascended were generally given a grace period to collect themselves and just be alone for a bit, but he did learn their titles. Ambition, Honor, and Cunning. He wondered if their families had been informed of their fates. "There's always talk of the world ending when there's a war going. It hasn't yet and it won't for a long time."

Miss Johnston opened her mouth to speak again. He cut her off before she could get any words out.

"Besides, we currently have 218 active Soulweavers on the Common Plane. If the world truly had ended, we would be welcoming more that just three new arrivals a month."

It was too much to hope for to see her gaping like a fish. She quickly turned on her heel and left, not bothering to look back or make another sound. He could trust that within a few days, talk of the world ending would die down, and familiar conversation would resume on the Plane once more. Aegis did not care for such a thing. He had other things to do.

* * *

Almost as soon as it started, there was talk that the war was over. Aegis had faintly heard that it had ended rather spectacularly as far as wars go. It was funny what dying did to someone's perspective. Not many people would describe a war as if it were a sporting event.

And yet, here they all were.

* * *

Aegis didn't know how long it had been since he'd last left the Plane. Designating himself it's protector had bitten him in the ass quite a few times in the years since his death, most notably in the form of having little time to himself. His time was spent instead patrolling the Plane, keeping the peace as best he could and dealing with any of the monsters that might wreak havoc.

(The monsters were a great surprise to him in those early weeks after his ascension. He'd spent the entirety of his grace period familiarizing himself with the Plane, but he had not been expecting that there might be creatures lurking within alongside his fellow Spirits. He'd been very naive then. He told himself that he'd gotten less so over the years.)

The war had claimed eleven Soulweavers before it ended.

Most groups would find such casualties astonishingly low. To the Spirits and their Soulweavers, whose numbers were low already, the loss was greatly felt.

Ambition. Devotion. Focus. Luck. Insight. Honor. Cunning. Silence. Industry. Candor. Fear.

That their death and ascension ultimately meant that new Soulweavers could be trained in greater numbers did nothing to ease their shared pain.

He told himself that when war came again, it would claim less of their numbers than it had before.

He told himself that after every war.

* * *

Aegis left the Plane of Elemental Spirits. Ceffuni was right, he did need to leave. No matter how much he sometimes liked to think so, it wasn't as if he was needed to protect the Plane. Most of the Spirits had been warriors or adventurers themselves before they died, and could easily take care of themselves. His death and ascension was recent enough that he hadn't become fixed as a protector to the minds of the Plane. He still had some leeway. He still had some freedom.

And it wasn't like he was going to be gone long. He just needed some fresh air, so to speak. He'd be back soon.

* * *

As soon as he reached the Common Plane he was greeted by scorched earth.

Not in the political sense, but the actual on-fire sense.

Just who was this war being fought with?

The ground blackened and charred beyond recognition, curved depressions where blasts of fire had no doubt incinerated the soil and grass into fine particles to be swept away by the wind. There were no trees here, merely black matches grown from the earth, collapsing in on themselves and falling to the ground. Even the sky seemed red, but a quick glance told him that was merely the sunset. The wind blew unbidden and cold through the mostly empty clearing, but that was no solace to the Spirit.

There had been too much fire here. Too much death. Too much fighting.

He needed to leave. He'd gotten his fresh air, and more.

So Aegis left.

* * *

He left the clearing, but not the Plane, and he did not know why.

There was nothing binding him to this realm, not anymore. His family had been notified of his demise (he hadn't been there, how could he, they were already grieving they didn't need to see what death had made him into) a few weeks after his ascension. His funeral had been traditional and quaint. (aside from the fact that his body had never been recovered)

He had no Soulweaver to beckon him to this Plane. He had no unfinished business.

He was still here.

He wandered.

* * *

And he found the Cave.

* * *

**NOTE: Well, it looks like I'm a liar. Fuck Centilingued, let's write a story about Aegis. I realize that this is probably a very confusing beginning—I wrote most of it at 7 am after a night of no sleep. Hopefully I'll be able to expand upon it in the next chapter in such a way that things aren't as confusing. You can always yell at me if I don't.**


	2. He totally did

Fire.

Upended trees.

Sections of earth reduced to nothing more than ash to be swept away by an uncaring wind, always uncaring, for the wind truly did not give a shit if the earth were to be burnt to cinders either in chunks or in totality for it will always be churning and blowing and _suffocating_ in its motion.

Perhaps, a dead, flat expanse of empty air would have been fitting for the small clearing he found himself in. Everything else in it was dead. The grass was burnt in many places and dried brown in others yet still it rested in the ground beneath his feet as if it were merely sleeping through winter and would turn fresh and green again come Spring and its dew. Scattered among the grass were artificial ravines where fire, no doubt the thrown fire favored by mages or the exhaled fire all dragons seemed to share regardless of their elemental leanings, had burned them away into little more than pockmarks in the ground.

There had been a battle here, obviously, but it was an old one. How old, he did not know, but old enough for the scent of blood and decay to be taken away from it, leaving only the scent of fire.

It was little solace.

With something akin to sickness, Aegis left the clearing as quickly as he could, too focused on the need to _go_ to even bother with a destination to go to.

* * *

Aegis was a Spirit.

He held the title of Elemental Spirit of Valor, as in life his Valor was what had most defined him.

Life, which he no longer had.

He was dead.

Sure, it might have eased his pondering mind for the first few years to think of himself as a capital S Spirit instead of just another ghost, but really that was all he was. Little more than the ghost of a dead Soulweaver whom the Powers That Be had decided to place in a body of Ice and Thread instead of Miasma and Aether.

Not that he was complaining. His death had granted him an exceptional insight into the Plane of Ice and the machinations of Frost and Cold, and Soulthread had many surprising uses.

But, sometimes there was almost a small sort of need to surrender himself to his mortality. To wander as any other dead soul might. To haunt. To finish or do that which he had not been able to in life.

This, he supposed, was what the grace period was intended for. To reconcile oneself with the fact that one is no longer among the living, that one is dead, that one will be forever dead from this point on and one will simply have to get used to it.

He'd never done that, focusing instead on guarding the Plane of Elemental Spirits, a decision that once again seemed to bite him in the ass.

Perhaps it was time to make do.

He had no Soulweaver. No unfinished business to the extent of his recollection nor anything that he truly needed to do.

All that was left was to wander.

So he did.

* * *

The clearing he had landed in turned out to be nearby to a region called Oaklore, far more South than Edelia and thus hotter than should be allowed to exist. Had he been living, Aegis was certain he'd have died from the heat alone.

As it was, he was dead already and so the heat could suck it.

There were actual living trees here, oaks instead of the pines he'd seen all his life. At least, he was pretty sure they were oaks. Never actually seen one before.

Whatever the trees actually were, it would be pretty damn stupid if they turned out to be anything else but oaks, because then that would be like naming a region Redwoodoplis when there is nothing but cacti for miles on end. Or something like that.

_TREES._

_MOVING ON._

Apparently this place was important enough to warrant a garrison since the moment he left the trees a knight waved him down and demanded to see his identification. Wait.

* * *

"What."

"New policy from Swordhaven, I'm afraid. The King himself put it to law. Magical beings must present identification upon arrival to towns, keeps, and stationary garrison."

The knight who had beckoned to him paused a moment, and awkwardly started rubbing at the back of his neck. "It's a bit invasive I know, and I don't much see the point of it since just about everything in creation has some magic in it, but orders are orders."

Aegis found himself at somewhat of a loss for words. True, such an order didn't make any sense, but then again the last time he had been on this Plane had been years ago when he'd been sinking slowly into brackish death before cruel Mercy ripped him away, so who knows what might have happened since then? For all he knew Humans had decided to try and declare themselves the master race or something and had started cleansing. Wouldn't be the first time something like that had happened. Good thing he was already dead.

The knight chose to take advantage of Aegis's silence by giving the Spirit a once-over, judging by the way his helm moved.

"Say," he began, "what exactly are you? I've been stationed here for five years and I haven't seen anything like you before. And I've been to Amityvayle."

"I am an Elemental Spirit." _And not telling you a damn thing more about what those are._

A whistle. "Elemental, eh? That's about as pure as it gets, magicwise. You don't look like any of the Elementals we see around here though—you a messenger from one of the Planes or something?"

Briefly, Aegis considered lying to the knight and saying that yes, he was an emissary from the Plane of Ice, but he quickly squashed that notion. Such a being would be important in the Plane's hierarchy, and thus, would have identification papers. He did not. So he shook his head and told the knight the truth, or as much of it as he cared to.

"No, merely a visitor. Though you're right on one account, I haven't been on the Common Plane for many years now. I'd heard there was a war going on and thought it was time I came to see what all transpired."

The knight nodded, presumably in a glum manner by how sober his tone had become. "Yeah, there was. The rise of this, Rose Faction, into power in the Court of Swordhaven has sewn a lot of dissension among many of the magical communities from here to Deren. Things only got worse when they started getting laws passed restricting the rights of non-human magic users. From there it was only a matter of time before things got bloody."

There was a sigh from beneath the helmet. The knight seemed to stiffen for a moment, and turned to look around. While they were conversing on an open road, there seemed to be no one else in sight. Clearly it wasn't a very busy day, but that could change in an instant. Slowly, a bit hesitantly, the knight leaned in and started talking, lower this time so as not to carry far, but loud enough to hear.

"Look, Mr. Elemental, I don't know what things were like the last time you were here on this earth, but things have changed for the worse. The world's not safe any more for magical beings like yourself. Now you seem like a nice enough kind of guy so I'm going to do you a favor. You need to get out of Oaklore as quickly as you can. We've got Rose agents coming here for basic training in a few months, but who knows if they're going to be here sooner than later—there's been a lot of pressure from the higher ups on that one."

"Now, I'm going to tell you something. Are you listening?" Aegis nodded. "Nearby here, just a quarter mile due west, there's cliff, at the bottom of which is a tunnel leading to an underground river. That river will take you right to an interim settlement some refugees from the Locker established. Now I'm not gonna sell you that this place will be safe forever, especially not with the trainees coming here, but it's somewhere safer than here. You with me?"

Aegis nodded again, wondering what a locker had to do with anything really, but still trusting the knight's words.

"Alright, go on with ya, and godspeed man. Normally it's a cruel thing to hope you never see someone again, but for both of our sakes let's hope this is the last we meet."

The knight backed away, and with a final glance hurried back to his post. Aegis did not dawdle.

While he could easily just return to the Plane of Elemental Spirits, all of a sudden he wanted to see more of this new world. In the years that he'd spent on the Plane, he'd forgotten how entrancing the land of his birth was. The grass was actually green instead of some light periwinkle, the sky blue instead of iridescent pink, everything didn't blend in together and he could smell things other than the sharp tang of magic.

No, he wasn't going to be leaving for a while.

Instead, he set off west.

* * *

He'd been promised a cliff, and the countryside did not fail to deliver. A wide expanse of empty air was before him, right in front of a sudden halting of land about two hundred feet high. There was actually a path leading to it admist the trees, for what purpose, Aegis didn't know. Perhaps the place used to be a popular suicide spot and they just hadn't bothered putting up signs or planting new trees yet. He couldn't see any bodies at the bottom, but it was entirely possible that a bear or gorrilaphant or something got to them first. Oh well.

Gingerly placing a hand over his eyes, Aegis braced himself and set one foot over the edge.

What most people don't know about levitation, is that it isn't really true flight. Levitation, like the kind that Spirits and sufficiently powerful mages have, is really forcing one's magic through the lower body to repel oneself from the ground. Since there's ground in every direction below you, all you have left to go is up. Unfortunately, levitation is both passive, and limited to only a few feet in height. There's only so much magic you can expend before it starts getting lost in the open air, and if you're already in open air, well, you're just gonna drop.

And drop he did.

* * *

Though all stationed knights in the region that day would recall hearing a faint, but shrill noise around the time that Aegis took his dive off the cliff, he would forever maintain that he did not scream.

Really.

He didn't.

* * *

Aegis didn't really land, per se, but he did reach a point where he was no longer falling about seven inches above the ground or so. Still, he was close enough to the ground to become intimately familiar with every pebble and blade of grass that was sitting so very uncomfortably close to his face. It took a moment to right himself, but after that he barely had to turn his head to see the giant gaping cave about six feet away.

Huh.

Convenient.

Not hesitating for a moment, Aegis started walking into the cave.

* * *

And what a dank mess it was. But really, what else can you expect from a cave?

Well gold and hookers might be interesting, but ultimately impractical. He needed to get back to his train of thought. Caves. _Caves._

_Caves suck._

Damp and smelly with a jagged mess of rocks for a floor covered in Lords know what making Aegis very happy that levitation came naturally to Spirits. There was no way in hell he was walking on that stuff, not at all.

There was no river as far as he could see (and he _could_ see, what with being a glowy mass of magic string), but Aegis could faintly hear the sound of rushing water beneath him.

From as far as his own illumination could grant him vision, there appeared to be no other routes aside from the one he was on, and so he kept walking. From what the knight had said, this place led to a hidden settlement, and he knew those better than most people. Hidden settlements tended to be in one of two flavors of hidden: they were hidden my magic, or by nature. Usually the general rule of thumb was that cities are hidden by magic and villages were hidden by nature, but knowing that didn't really help much if you didn't know which one you were going to. If the place was hidden by magic, he might pass it and never know, but if it was hidden by nature, he could be walking for quite a while.

At least the water did nice things for his ice core. Being in such close proximity to cold made it all tingly, spreading not so much a warmth through him but something equivalent to it. All together a very pleasant sensation.

He'd lost track of how long he'd spent floating down the cave, but Aegis guessed it to have been around fifteen minutes before the cave walls started ballooning upward. It shouldn't be long now.

Briefly, Aegis wondered how he would be granted entrance to his destination.

He got his answer when something hit him very hard in the back of the head and his vision was lost in a haze of blackness and pain.

* * *

**So here's chapter 2 and I had a ton of fun writing this. Don't know much else to say except I'm doing a much better job at foreshadowing stuff here than I did in Stop Me If You've Heard This One. Don't really know when I'll start rewriting that, but it'll happen eventually. Maybe when I finish this story. That might take a while though.**


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